A bill that would provide tax subsidies for private school tuition isn’t going to make it out of the House Education Committee.

That’s because the committee’s chairman, Rep. Tom Massey[1], a moderate Republican from Poncha Springs, won’t support the bill, said Rep. Spencer Swalm[2], R-Centennial, the author of the legislation.

While he said he had not taken an official position on the bill, Massey did concede, “I have significant concerns about it.”

The legislation, House Bill 1048, was set to get a hearing in Massey’s committee today, but Swalm said he asked House Speaker Frank McNulty[3], R-Highlands Ranch, to allow the bill to be assigned to the House Finance Committee, where it was likely to get a friendlier reception.

“We will address the substance of the bill in Finance,” Swalm said. “Frankly, it was a way to allow the bill to live to fight another day.

“We have not a full floor debate on school choice in a way that this bill does in a long time,” he said.

Under the bill, people who send their children to private schools or who home school them would get an income tax credit. People who offer a scholarship to students in private schools also would get the tax credit.

When fully phased-in by 2024, the bill would cost the state an estimated $333.5 million in lost revenue but would save the state an estimated $325.1 million in expenditures the same year.

Critics of such tuition tax credit proposals call them back-door school vouchers, but supporters argue that they allow parents with few real options school choice.

The bill is expected to do well in the Republican-controlled House but receive a cold shoulder when it reaches the Democratic-led Senate.